


Life Boats

by KarboniteManeuver



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Marriage Hunt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22082377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarboniteManeuver/pseuds/KarboniteManeuver
Summary: I'd read WrithingBeneathYou's Marriage Hunt AU and absolutely loved it, it left me with a flush of warm fuzzies and this came out!The title is from a song by Snow Patrol
Relationships: Senju Tobirama & Uchiha Madara, Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 3
Kudos: 128





	Life Boats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WrithingBeneathYou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrithingBeneathYou/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Kick up your Heels](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21448246) by [WrithingBeneathYou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrithingBeneathYou/pseuds/WrithingBeneathYou). 



> I'd read WrithingBeneathYou's Marriage Hunt AU and absolutely loved it, it left me with a flush of warm fuzzies and this came out! 
> 
> The title is from a song by Snow Patrol

The crackle of flame, dances across the lines of the man’s face as he sits parallel to it-- the crazed god incarnate tucked within his domain of fire. Shadows ebb and flow along the smooth surface of hewn stone that surrounds them, the heat burning away the dank, dark of the cave-- a makeshift fortress repurposed, if only for their safety.

Calloused hands rise from the thick, woven, charcoal cotton coating what Tobirama knew to be well-muscled thighs. With the intimacy of a lover he stokes at the fire before them, in all the right places, to maximum effect, as it rises and snaps appreciatively, reaching out to meet him. 

It’s a stolen moment, something he isn’t supposed to see from his pallet. As he is not so gently reminded, limbs leaden from the sleep he hadn’t known he’d needed. It had been a simple thing, a meeting at the River Naka. Even the treachery of Suna hadn’t been a terrible surprise… The wound of an arrow bolt pulses with mere acknowledgment, but Tobirama is unwilling to stir-- to draw the too intense attentions of one, Madara Uchiha. 

Blood had been spilling from him, nursing the old gods of the river that he is so familiar with. He’d been left with just enough shore, thick stones uneven against his otherwise remarkably intact armor, his life force having becoming an artistic mockery-- simple watercolor in the gullet of his own element, a nagging reminder of his smallness within the vast periphery of nature and the larger world. 

There’s a gentle chuckle from a couple of feet away-- low, deep and familiar in its warmth. 

“How long are you going to pretend to be asleep, Senju?” 

A sensor... gifts bequeathed from their ancestors in parallel, Sharingan and Rinnegan… They all know the tales, but for as much as he blusters, hot-headed as so many within his clan are, very little seems to escape this particular Uchiha’s attentions. 

“I was merely reflecting on how you pulled a foolish man from the mouth of the river, armor and underclothes sopping from a peace deal gone awry.” 

Madara turns, hand replaced on his own thigh, long, thick hair catching on his shoulder as he looks over it. It could’ve been met with the anger and frustration it likely deserved, the rage that colored their youth, warring clans shifting back and forth as each side had gained and lost territory… But, it isn’t like that these days. Even Izuna, though loath to admit it, has garnered a certain fondness from the likes of a certain, florid elder brother, his anija. 

“I’m hesitant to draw the parallel between that decision and those of a certain, older, Senju, lest they become more commonplace...” 

He can tell, even in the warm crackle of half-light that Madara is doing his best to tamp down the slightly smug grin more than threatening to swim forth. 

There’s a pause, and he can feel Madara simply watching him, taking him in, in his entirety with the kind of heavy weight that has punctuated so many of their nights since the Marriage Hunt-- their limbs tangled together, faces pressed to the smooth, yet solid muscle between the tops of shoulders, back to chest with nothing but the skin Sage blessed them with in between. 

“H--” It takes him a moment, the afternoon a monolith of experience he’d prefer more vaguely remembered than the soreness of his body allows. 

“How did you find me?” 

Madara clucks his tongue patronizingly and moves to stand. Gorgeous, capable, bastard that he is. In just a couple of steps he had kneeled and is shifting back a thick cloak to fill the pallet beside Tobirama, his mantle removed. His body is still fire-warmed, even more than its usual intensity, that flows like molten rock in his veins, and likely just as stubbornly. 

“Your body bares my name, and I yours.” The explanation, something so simple. The words an echo, a promise-- well and many times consummated... 

A hand reaches forward, solid but reverant in its attentions to the puncture his shoulder speaks of. 

“It isn’t much, we’ll need to see a medic once we return, but I didn’t want to move you too much with the blood loss.” 

Tobirama moves to turn onto his side, but it joustles the echo of a wound and a hiss escapes him before he can stop it. Reflexively, hands are easing him back down-- to think that this man, his husband, even... could be capable of such… unbidden affection. It’s something that in not-so-distant past he would’ve considered, at best, improbable, and at worst impossible. Yet, though their communication does periodically leave something to be desired, something explained so easily by the cultural differences of their clans-- he’s been pleased to unwrap the man further with each step, and allow himself, in return, to be stripped to each of their base elements and further towards neutrality. 

A head comes to rest against his chest, carefully clearing the dull throb in his shoulder, and in a show of almost hound-like loyalty the man settles onto him, warm, solid and real.


End file.
